Details emerge in road-rage shooting between firefighter, ex-cop

An arrest report, recordings of 9-1-1 calls, and interviews with witnesses released Monday provide details regarding what happened that night between the two men.

TONY HOLTSTAFF WRITER

Nathaniel Juratovac reacted to a thrown water bottle by firing a gun, deputies said. The former Flagler Beach police officer was arrested following an apparent road-rage incident Friday night involving Jared Parkey, a Flagler County firefighter who was found lying along U.S. 1 in St. Augustine with two bullet wounds to his upper body, according to the St. Johns Sheriff's Office. An arrest report, recordings of 9-1-1 calls, and interviews with witnesses released Monday provide details regarding what happened that night between the two men.Both Parkey and Juratovac were traveling north along U.S. 1 when Juratovac tapped his brakes because he felt Parkey was following too closely, reports state. Parkey, who was driving a Toyota 4Runner, threw a water bottle at Juratovac's Ford Explorer and both vehicles collided. The drivers eventually pulled off to the side of the road, according to the Sheriff's Office. Parkey then exited his vehicle unarmed, deputies said. Witnesses said they saw Juratovac get out of his vehicle, walk toward Parkey and shoot him. Arrest reports show Parkey was accompanied by his wife and daughter and Juratovac was with his wife and their 4-year-old daughter when the shooting took place. After the shooting, passers-by saw Parkey lying in the street and several people, including Parkey's wife, Ashley, called 9-1-1. Her voice rose to a screech as she tried to describe what had just happened. "My husband just got shot ... please hurry," she yelled. One of the passers-by, Robin Wilson, 56, of St. Augustine helped Parkey's frantic wife by taking over the phone and telling the emergency operator their location. She also applied pressure to one of Parkey's wounds as he lay in the fetal position on his side, she said. Paramedics arrived within minutes. "They came and took him away," Wilson said Monday in a telephone interview. "It was awful, to be honest with you." Parkey was airlifted to Shands Jacksonville Medical Center. While at the hospital, Parkey admitted to deputies he had thrown a plastic bottle at Juratovac's vehicle, according to reports.Soon after deputies arrived, Juratovac told one of them he was the shooter and told him where they could find his gun, authorities said. Juratovac was not questioned by the arresting deputy about the shooting, but after he was arrested and placed inside the patrol car, he told the deputy: "The other vehicle involved threw an object at my vehicle then hit my vehicle. When we came to a stop, the driver ran up to my car and I shot him," according to the arrest report. Juratovac, 40, was charged with attempted murder, jailed and transferred to a neighboring jurisdiction because his wife works with the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, said agency spokesman Kevin Kelshaw. Kelshaw said he did not know where Juratovac was being held. One of several 9-1-1 callers the night of the incident said he knew he had to get to a safe distance before making his emergency call. He told the operator he had watched the entire scene unfold — two racing SUVs bumping and rubbing along U.S. 1 and then one driver getting out and shooting the other. "There's two cars that were like playing, I don't know, chicken or aggressively driving at each other and then we saw them again," said the caller. "And there's somebody laying on the ground (and) it looked like somebody had a gun." "Oh, dear Lord," the operator said. Later during the conversation, the caller said he was nearly run off the road by both of the vehicles. "One of them almost ran into the other and almost ran us off the road," he said. "So, we just slowed down and let them go." That caller, Joseph Napolitano, 58, of St. Augustine, told a reporter he not only witnessed the vehicles veer off the road, but also watched one man shoot the other. "I saw the gunshot and I heard the gunshot," Napolitano said over the phone. He declined to talk more about it. Parkey was released from the hospital about 5 a.m. Saturday, nine hours after he was shot, said Flagler County Fire Rescue Chief Don Petito. Pertito said the bullets went clean through. He spent most of the holiday weekend recuperating at home with his family, his chief said."When we found out about it first of all, we were all in shock that he was involved in an altercation that led to him getting shot," Petito said Monday. "Afterward, we worried about the outcome of him being shot. And then when we found out he was going to be released ... we were all relieved and also surprised."Petito said when he called Parkey's house Monday, Parkey's father answered and told him his son was going to a doctor's appointment that morning for a check-up. "His dad said everybody is doing well," Petito said.Juratovac resigned from the Flagler Beach Police Department in 2008 shortly after he was cleared of perjury and other charges. Those charges stemmed from a November 2005 incident involving Lisa Tanner, the daughter of then-State Attorney John Tanner. Juratovac arrested Lisa Tanner at her home on battery and resisting arrest charges, but they were later dropped. Juratovac, in turn, was investigated and accused of committing perjury and falsifying documents in connection to the arrest. A judge dropped the charges during Juratovac's trial in May 2008, citing unreliable testimony from a key witness in the case. After Juratovac's law enforcement career was over, he opened a commercial cleaning business. He now lives in St. Augustine, according to reports.

Editor's note: Jared Parkey and Nathaniel Juratovac were both driving north on U.S. 1 in St. Augustine in separate vehicles when a confrontation between them took place and not as reported in an earlier version of this story.